Caine

Novice · Swamp Camp

"He's a great alchemist, well, maybe the best in the Colony. And he's a man of faith, a true believer."

Kalom's apprentice

Caine is Cor Kalom's apprentice and speaks of his master as important—veeery important—because Kalom is the master of novices. Caine is eager to establish that connection when the Hero first meets him, even though his own answers become hesitant and distracted when the conversation turns too close to Kalom's work.

Kalom's assistant

Caine helps Kalom with concoctions, naming potions, swampweed, and dreamjuice among the things they prepare. His description of Kalom is admiring: he calls him a great alchemist, perhaps the best in the Colony, and a true believer who has seen the Sleeper more clearly than most of the Brotherhood.

Minecrawler ichor

The dreamjuice is made from minecrawler mandibles, and Kalom pays well for the ichor inside them. Caine warns the Hero not to treat that payment as an invitation to hunt alone: minecrawlers are dangerous and hard to kill.

For practical advice he points to the templars, especially Gor Na Drak, who goes to the Old Mine every morning and returns at night.

A distracted novice

Caine's confusion becomes more visible when the Hero asks whether he is all right. He admits he has been spiritualising, then loses track of what he was saying and returns to asking whether the Hero knows Kalom.

The record does not establish whether the cause is the Brotherhood's substances, exhaustion, or devotion, so it is safer to describe the behaviour than to assign it a diagnosis.

What other NPCs say

The references come up around the Brotherhood's experiments, visions, and missing errands: Cor Kalom is annoyed when his apprentice fails to appear, while Joru describes Caine delivering batches for the novices to test. Lares, Raven, and Y'Berion place him in the political traffic between camps. Cor Kalom's frustration is clear when he calls Caine his apprentice, complains that the lazy fool has not appeared, and then credits him with following the visions that led to the amulet.

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